Nicholas Sparks is the author of over a dozen novels. In 1994, at the age of twenty-eight, he wrote The Notebook over a period of six months. In October 1995, rights to The Notebook were sold to Warner Books. It was published in October 1996, and he followed that with Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Rescue, A Bend in the Road, Nights in Rodanthe, The Guardian, The Wedding, Three Weeks with My Brother, True Believer, and At First Sight. All were domestic and international bestsellers and were translated into more than forty languages. The movie version of Message in a Bottle was released in 1999, A Walk to Remember was released in 2002, and The Notebook was released in 2004. The average domestic box office gross per film was $56 million with another $100 million in DVD sales making the novels by Nicholas Sparks one of the most successful franchises in Hollywood. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and children.